Bloods street gang member admits trafficking drugs in Moss Point

The Bloods street gang member squalled like a baby when he found out he was going to federal prison for 12 years for drug-trafficking charges in January, but he managed to hold it together Thursday when he pleaded guilty to state drug charges.

Still, Moss Point resident Melvin Eugene Summers, 37, was confused at first about what drug he was admitting to trafficking into his hometown of Moss Point.

“We thought it was ecstasy, but it turns out it was meth,” his attorney Calvin Taylor told Judge Kathy King Jackson prior to the plea.

Summers pleaded guilty to trafficking 40 dosage units of meth and distributing up to 30 grams of cocaine. In the distribution case, he admitted selling the cocaine to a confidential informant.

Prosecutors are recommending Summers serve a sentence of 20 years on each count to run concurrently, with 12 years to serve day for day. However, Taylor said he wanted a hearing during the April 21 sentencing to determine if Summers should have to serve a day-for-day sentence for the crimes.

Summers was sentenced in April to an additional seven years and five months on a federal charge for using a submachine gun while distributing more than 1,798 kilos of marijuana in Moss Point.

Summers had been under investigation since March 2012 in all of the cases. The probe began after an informant told federal agents Summers had been dealing large amounts of marijuana and cocaine, crack, powder cocaine and firearms from a home he rented on Hubert Street.

He used the Hubert Street home strictly for the drug business, an FBI agent said.

Summers also has convictions for dog fighting and receiving stolen property.

As a teen, he was a star running back at his South Mississippi high school. His first felony conviction came after he pleaded guilty to five counts of dog fighting in 2004.

In that case, he admitted staging five dog fights at his brother’s home in April, May, August and September 2001.

When authorities arrested him and his brother, they had also rounded up scarred pit bulls and 30 graphic videotapes of the fatal dog fights. A prosecutor said at the time of the plea Summers would have gone to prison for a long time on those charges had a jury seen the tapes.